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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 
IN OIL AND BRONZE 


By 
JOHN CLYDE OSWALD 


Author of “Benjamin Franklin, Printer” 
A History of “Printing” 


NEW YORK 
WILLIAM EDWIN RUDGE 
1926 
, TIONS 
pe TH Oe corres 


FRO 
FLERSED 1) 
OF Hag LONG SAND 





TA PAE OY 
In recognition and appreciation of her 
patience with her husband's hobbies 





FOREWORD 


ROBABLY the features and form of no man who ever lived were 

delineated so frequently and in such a variety of ways as were 

those of Benjamin Franklin. His long career, his varied pur- 
suits, his distinguished accomplishments and consequent fame, the 
fact that he lived for many years in each of three different countries 
—all these circumstances added together made for both quantity and 
variety in his portraiture. Every article, ornamental or otherwise, of 
his time, that could be utilized as a background for his portrait or his 
effigy was so used. Watches, clocks, pocket-knives, razors, plates, 
handkerchiefs, cameos, snuff-boxes, medals, medallions, busts, stat- 
ues, statuettes, bearing Franklin’s visage are still to be found in pro- 
fusion. A numerous collection, made by Henry E. Huntington, is in 
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and there are other 
collections both public and private. 

The name of Franklin is used more frequently to designate coun- 
ties, towns, streets, etc., than that of any other American. The num- 
ber of statues, busts and portraits bearing his name is exceeded by 
no other excepting possibly that of Washington. The number of 
buildings erected to house the institutions and corporations bearing 
Franklin’s name is steadily increasing and it is the rule to include 
somewhere in the decorative scheme of each a Franklin bust or por- 
trait or a painting depicting some phase of his career. There has, 
therefore, been a demand for a work giving information in regard 
to authoritative Franklin delineations, which is the occasion for the 


issuance of this volume. 






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Benjamin Franklin in Oil and Bronze 


FRANKLIN’S PERSONAL APPEARANCE 


HE ONLY contemporaneous description of Franklin that has come down 

to us is an unfriendly one. It is contained in a volume of one hundred and 

fifteen pages, entitled the “Histoire dun Pou Francois; au L’Espion 

d@une nouvelle espece, tant en France qu’en Angleterre” (History of a 
French Louse; or the Spy of a new species, in France and England). It was pub- 
lished anonymously in French in Paris in 1779 and reprinted in English in London 
the same year. The description referred to reads as follows: 


By good fortune I found myself placed directly opposite to Monsieur Ambassador; and here I must 
acknowledge that I was not able to forbear laughing heartily when I contemplated the grotesque figure 
of this original, who with a vulgar person and mean appearance, affected the air and gestures of a fop. 
A sun-burnt complection, a wrinkled forehead, warts in many places, which might be said to be as 
graceful in him as the moles that distinguished the sweet face of the Countess of Barry. With these 
he had the advantage of a double chin, to which was added a great bulk of nose, and teeth which might 
have been taken for cloves had they not been set fast in a thick jaw. This, or something like this, is the 
true picture of his Excellency. As for his eyes I could not distinguish them, because of the situation I 
was in; and besides a large pair of spectacles hid two thirds of his face. 


James Parton, an early biographer who wrote from first-hand information, 
says of Franklin that his eyes were gray and his complexion light. Notwithstand- 
ing the fact that Thackeray in “The Virginians” refers to him as “the little post- 
master,” Franklin was physically rather a large man, about five feet ten inches in 
height and somewhat stout. He was athletic in tendency, having been in his youth, 
in fact, America’s first amateur athlete. He was a champion swimmer, so expert 
that if he had remained when still scarcely out of his teens in London instead of 


8 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN OIL AND BRONZE 


coming back to engage in business in America, he probably would have become 
the managing partner of a swimming school that it was proposed to establish for 
him there. 

Young Franklin’s dexterity as a wrestler is attested by the ease with which he 
once pitched his boyhood chum Collins head foremost out of a boat without 
upsetting it, when that worthy refused to take his turn at rowing. In his later years 
in speaking to Robert Morris he referred to the time “‘when I was a boxing boy.” 

He never shirked manual labor and always performed it ably. We read in the 
Autobiography: ‘On occasion, I carried up and down stairs a large form of types 
in each hand, when others carried but one in both hands.” And again: “TI some- 
times brought home the paper I purchased at the stores through the streets in a 
wheelbarrow.” 

Franklin’s tendency was naturally studious and after retiring from active busi- 
ness at the age of forty-two and devoting himself to sedentary pursuits he found 
that he was growing corpulent. A year or so after his retirement he wrote about a 
business matter which called for a journey: “I am growing almost too lazy to 
undertake it.” Later, by way of doing a good turn to a friend, he said: “I love 
ease more than ever, and by daily using your horses I can be of service to you and 
them by preventing their growing too fat and becoming restive.” 

He was accustomed to refer to himself humorously as Dr. Fatsides and his 
struggles against his increasing bulk are exhibited in a statement in the privately 
circulated Craven Street Gazette, of which he was the author, to this effect: “Dr. 
Fatsides made four hundred and sixty-nine turns in his dining room.” He once 
wrote to his sister Jane: “For my part I wish the house was turned upside down; 
tis so difficult (when one is fat) to go up stairs.” 

Franklin’s head was large, and his face long and the chin somewhat pointed. 
The mouth, it will be seen from the portraits, had a peculiarly set expression. In 
his later years his hair grew white and thin. The lines of the figure of all the por- 
traits are curving rather than angular, as was the case, for instance, with Abraham 
Lincoln. 

The largeness of Franklin’s head gave rise to an amusing complication at the 
beginning of his representation of the American colonies in France. Presentation 
at court required a costume prepared along rigid lines, one necessary part of which 
was a wig. Franklin ordered a wig, and tradition, as recorded by James Parton, 
says: 

On the appointed day, the perukier himself brought home the work of his hands, and tried it on; but 
the utmost efforts of the great artist could not get it upon the head it was designed to disfigure. After 
patiently submitting for a long time to the manipulations of the perukier, Dr. Franklin ventured to 
hint that, perhaps the wig was a little too small. “Monsieur, it is impossible.” After many more fruit- 
less trials, the perukier dashed the wig to the floor, in a furious passion, exclaiming, ““No, Monsieur; 
it is not the wig which is too small; it is your head which is too large.” It was too late, continues the 


anonymous chronicler who recorded this anecdote, to procure another, and, therefore, the audacious 
philosopher resolved to approach the presence of majesty “without a bag.” . . . 


FRANKLIN’S PERSONAL APPEARANCE 9 


On the morning of the great day he dressed as he would have dressed if he were going out to dine 
with the president of Congress—in a suit of plain black velvet, with the usual snowy ruffles at wrist 
and bosom, white silk stockings and silver buckles. And a more superb costume than that has never been 
worn by an old gentleman in any age or country. So General Washington was attired on occasions of 
state, with the addition of yellow gloves, a cocked hat and plume, and sword with steel hilt and white 
leather scabbard. Dr. Franklin’s costume, I need not say, was a most brilliant success. Mr. Austin in- 
timates that the chamberlain hesitated a moment about admitting him, but it was only for a moment; 
and all the court were captivated at the noble, well-timed effrontery of his conduct. 

Franklin . . . positively would not again submit to the daily nuisance of pigtail and powder. His 
white hair being now too scanty for the protection of his head, he was accustomed to wear at this 
time (but soon discarded it) an odd-looking fur cap, which did impart to his appearance something that 
might pass for rusticity. One of the first letters which he wrote in Paris, contains a humorous descrip- 
tion of his appearance: “Figure me, in your mind, as jolly as formerly, and as strong and hearty, only 
a few years older; very plainly dressed, wearing my thin, gray, straight hair, that peeps out under my 
only coiffure, a fine fur cap, which comes down my forehead almost to my spectacles. Think how this 
must appear among the powdered heads of Paris! I wish every lady and gentleman in France would 
only be so obliging as to follow my fashion, comb their own heads, as I do mine, dismiss the friseurs, 
and pay me half the money they paid to them.” 


Parton presents another attractive description of Franklin when he says: 


To appreciate properly the labors of Dr. Franklin during the next two years, we must not lose 
sight of the fact that he had reached that period of life when most men find it necessary, and all men 
find it pleasant, to desist from toil. But he was an old man only in years. His mind never grew old; 
and his body, at this time, was not perceptibly impaired. . . . His face was ruddy, and indicated vig- 
orous health. His countenance expressed serenity, firmness, benevolence, and easily assumed a certain 
look of comic shrewdness, as if waiting to see whether his companion had “taken” a joke. Some of his 
portraits preserve this expression. In conversation, he excelled greatly in the rare art of listening, and 
seemed devoid of the least taint of a desire to shine. His was a weighty and expressive silence, which 
elicited talk, not quelled it; and his taciturnity gave to his utterances, when he did speak, the character 
of events to be remembered and reported. Hence, anecdotes of Franklin were among the current coin 
of conversation in Philadelphia, and the staple of editorial paragraphs throughout the Colonies. 


Dr. Manasseh Cutler, a distinguished New England scholar, called upon Ben- 
jamin Franklin in 1787, after Franklin’s return from France and practical retire- 
ment from actual participation in public affairs, and in his journal he presents this 
engaging picture of the old philosopher: 


Dr. Franklin lives in Market Street. His house stands up a court, at some distance from the street. 
We found him in his garden, sitting upon a grassplot, under a very large mulberry tree, with several 
other gentlemen and two or three ladies. When Mr. Gerry introduced me, he rose from his chair, 

took me by the hand, expressed his joy at seeing me, welcomed me to the city, and begged me to seat 
myself close to him. His voice was low, but his countenance open, frank and pleasing. I delivered to 
him my letters. After he had read them, he took me again by the hand, and, with the usual compli- 
ments, introduced me to the other gentlemen, who are most of them members of the convention. . . . 
He seemed extremely fond, through the course of the visit, of dwelling on philosophical subjects, and 
particularly that of natural history, while the other gentlemen were swallowed up with politics. ‘This 
was a favorable circumstance for me; for almost the whole of his conversation was addressed to me, 
and I was highly delighted with the extensive knowledge he appeared to have of every subject, the 
brightness of his memory, and clearness and vivacity in all his mental faculties, notwithstanding his 
age. His manners are perfectly easy, and everything about him seems to diffuse an unrestrained free- 
dom and happiness. He has an incessant vein of humor, accompanied with an uncommon vivacity, 
which seems as natural and involuntary as his breathing. He urged me to call on him again, but my 
short stay would not admit. We took our leave at ten, and I retired to my lodgings. 


THE FRANKLIN PORTRAITS 


RANKLIN died fifty years before the invention of photography. Only 

two accurate methods of portrait delineation other than engraving and 

etching existed in his time, those of silhouette, which was restricted to pro- 

files, and painting. The silhouette was not important, but painting was very 
much so, and happily many portraits of Franklin were made by painters to whom 
he sat, but, equally unhappily, it must also be said that many of the portraits now in 
existence were made by painters who never saw the original. 

Franklin, like Washington, found sitting for his portrait an irksome task. 
Under date of June 25, 1780, he wrote from France to Thomas Digges in part as 
follows: 

I have at the request of friends, sat so much and so often to painters and statuaries, that I am per- 
fectly sick of it. I know of nothing so tedious as sitting hours in one fixed posture. I would neverthe- 
less do it once more to oblige you if it was necessary, but there are already so many good likenesses of 
the face, that if the best of them is copied it will probably be better than a new one, and the body is 
only that of a lusty man which need not be drawn from the life; any artist can add such a body to the 
face. Or it may be taken from Chamberlin’s print. I hope therefore you will excuse me. The face 


Miss Georgiana has is thought here to be the most perfect. Ornaments and emblems are best left to 
the fancy of the painter. 


More than a month previously he had written to Fournier, the French type 
founder, a letter in French which has been translated, as follows: 


I speak French so poorly that I am not surprised to find that you do not understand me in connec- 
tion with the portrait that you desired. When I mentioned Mr. Duplessis it was for the purpose of 
telling you that the artist having made a good portrait of me in large size for M. de Chaumont, he 
could copy it in miniature for you. But as you prefer to have it made after life, I have consented to 
oblige you and pose for any artist you might wish to employ, although it is a very tedious matter for 
me and I have refused several already. It would seem from a few expressions in your letter that you 
understand that I pay the artist. Therefore, we must understand each other better before starting, for 
although I feel flattered at the honor that you will do me to accept my portrait, I wish to advise you 
that I am neither rich nor vain enough to have copies made at eight or ten louis each to give them 
away and at the same time I do not think that they are worth the expense you wish to make for them. 


In a letter to his daughter from France under date of June 3, 1779, Franklin 
further referred to the multiplicity of representations of his portrait as follows: 


The clay medallion of me you say you gave to Mr. Hopkinson was the first of the kind made in 
France. A variety of others have been made since of different sizes; some to be set in the lids of snuff- 
boxes, and some so small as to be worn in rings; and the numbers sold are incredible. These, with the 
pictures, busts, and prints (of which copies upon copies are spread everywhere) have made your father’s 
face as well known as that of the moon, so that he durst not do anything that would oblige him to run 
away, as his phiz would discover him wherever he should venture to show it. 


The most familiar and the most famous portraits of Franklin are those by 
Joseph Sifréde Duplessis, who many times painted “le grand Americain,” as 
Franklin was called in France. Duplessis’s portraits of Franklin are in the pos- 
session of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Mutual Assurance 
Company, Philadelphia, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, the Metro- 





' DUPLESSIS PORTRAIT 
REPRODUCTION OF PHOTOGRAPH OF PAINTING OWNED BY MUTUAL INSURANCE 
COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA. ALSO IN PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS, 
CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, 
NEW YORK, NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY AND 
BOSTON MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS 


I2 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN OIL AND BRONZE 


politan Museum of Art, New York, the New York Public Library, the Boston 
Public Library, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and several others are in private 
hands. The New York Historical Society possesses what is either an original Du- 
plessis or a good copy. It was purchased by Louis Durr and presented by will with 
more than one hundred and fifty other paintings to the Society on Mr. Durr’s 
death in 1880. It is accepted by experts as a genuine Duplessis, but is not signed or 
inscribed on the back, and there is no record of its history. 

Duplessis was Conservator of the Museum at Versailles and an Academician, 
who painted portraits of personages of distinction, among them Louis XVI and 
the French monarch’s great Director-General of Finances, James Necker. A 
contemporaneous French reference to Duplessis is to the effect that he “was dis- 
tinguished by a beautiful intelligence, by his effect of light on flesh and acces- 
sories, by a free pencil, much feeling and correct coloring.” A statue was erected 
in Versailles to his memory and one of the city’s streets bears his name. 

The Duplessis portraits, excepting the pastel in the New York Library, are 
known as “fur collar” portraits. Richard S. Greenough, the sculptor who did the 
Franklin statue in front of the City Hall in Boston, is quoted as saying that Frank- 
lin’s fondness for fur in his pictures is due to the fact that fur was used as a profes- 
sional badge by the early printers. Where Mr. Greenough got his information is 
not known. Duplessis painted his first portrait in 1778 for M. Donatien le Ray de 
Chaumont, mentioned in the letter to Fournier previously quoted, whose “petite . 
maison” at Versailles Franklin occupied. This portrait came into the possession of 
Thomas Jefferson, who bequeathed it to Joseph Coolidge, Jr., who in turn sold it 
to the Boston Atheneum in 1828 for $200.00. 

The Duplessis pastel was done in 1783. It was presented by Franklin to M. 
Louis Veillard, Mayor of Passy, the district.in which Franklin lived, to whom 
was presented also the original manuscript of the famous Autobiography. The 
pastel is a gift from John Bigelow, at one time United States ambassador from 
the United States to the Court of Versailles, to the New York Public Library. It 
will be recalled that it was Mr. Bigelow who discovered the original manuscript 
of the Autobiography, both it and the Duplessis pastel being in the possession of 
M. de Senarmont, a member of the Le Veillard family by marriage. The pastel 
hangs in the trustees’ room of the New York Public Library, where by the terms of 
Mr. Bigelow’s gift it is to remain. 

Another portrait painted by Duplessis in 1778 recently came into the ownership 
of a private collector in New York, Colonel Michael Friedsam. Franklin presented 
this portrait at the close of his ministry in Paris to the Perier Brothers, engineers 
and owners of the famous Chaillot fire engine, with whom he was on terms of 
intimate friendship and in whose family it remained until its purchase by Colonel 
Friedsam. 

A miniature of the “fur collar” variety by Duplessis is owned by Mrs. Edward 
P. (Ellen Duane) Davis, of Philadelphia, a lineal descendant of Franklin. 





DUPLESSIS PASTEL 
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 





DUPLESSIS PORTRAIT 
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, NEW YORK 





DUPLESSIS PORTRAIT IN FRANKLIN UNION, BOSTON 
SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN DONE BY THE MASTER’S PUPILS 


16 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN OIL AND BRONZE 


The Duplessis portraits are so admirably described by Sydney George Fisher 
in his interesting volume, “The True Benjamin Franklin,” that I cannot do better 
than quote the description in full: 


Any one who will examine the original or any good replicas of it in oil will, I am convinced, see 
Franklin as he really was. The care in details, the wrinkles, and the color of the skin give us confidence 
in it as a likeness. The round, strong, but crude form of the boy of twenty has been beaten and 
changed by time into a hundred qualities and accomplishments, yet the original form is still discern- 
ible, and the face looks straight at us; we see the eyes and every line close at hand. 

In this, the best portrait for studying Franklin’s eye, we see at once that it is the eye of a very 
sensuous man, and we also see many details which mark the self-made man, the man who never had 


been and never pretended to ent to material wealth. Nor 
be an aristocrat. This is in do we find in him any of 
strong contrast to Washing- that bitter hostility and jeal- 


ton’s portraits, which all dis- asta) ousy of the established and 
close a man distinctly of the . ¥ successful which more mod- 
upper class and conscious of ern experience might lead us 
Tt to expect. 

The Duplessis portrait con- 
forms to what we read of 
Franklin in representing him 
as hale and vigorous at sev- 
enty-two. The face is full of 
lines, but they are the lines of 
thought, and of thought that 
has come easily and cheer- 
fully; there are no traces of 


But, in spite of this home- 
liness in the Duplessis por- 
trait, and the easy, careless 
manner in which the clothes 
are worn, there are no signs 
of what might be called vul- 
garity. The wonderful and 
manysided accomplishments 
of the man carried him well 





above this. Brought up as a anxiety, gnawing care, or 
boy at candle and soap mak- bitterness. In Paris, at the 
ing, he nevertheless, when time the Duplessis portrait 
prosperous, turned instinct- was painted, Franklin was 
ively to higher things and re- PRATT PORTRAIT regarded as a rather unusual 
fined accomplishments and example of vigor and good 
was comparatively indiffer- health in old age, 


The Franklin portrait in the Franklin Union in Boston was presented by Benja- 
min Franklin to Isaiah Thomas, who ranks next to Franklin in fame as an Ameri- 
can printer. The painting is believed to be a copy of a Duplessis by one or more of 
the master’s pupils made under his direction. It was presented by Mrs. Richard 
Olney, a direct descendant of ‘Thomas. 

The earliest authentic portrait of Franklin is the one painted by Matthew Pratt 
in Philadelphia in 1757, just before Franklin, at the age of fifty-one, left upon 
his first mission to England as representative of the American Colonies. Pratt was 
an American artist who was practically self-taught, having had no foreign train- 
ing. He was born in 1734 and lived to be seventy-one years of age. His father 
was an intimate friend of Franklin. 

The Mason Chamberlin portrait was done in 1762 and therefore represents 
Franklin at fifty-six years of age. Chamberlin was one of the original members 
of the Royal Academy. He exhibited the portrait at the Society of Artists in 1763. 





CHAMBERLIN PORTRAIT 


18 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN OIL AND BRONZE 


It was bought by Joshua Bates, an American banker who lived in England and 
was a member of the firm of Baring Brothers. Bates served as umpire when the 
Joint Committee representing the United States and Great Britain could not agree 
in their attempt to settle the claims growing out of the war of 1812. Bates died in 
1864 and the portrait passed to his daughter, who had married M. Sylvain Van 
de Weyer, for many years Belgian minister in London. It was brought to America 
by M. Knoedler & Co. of New York. Jared Sparks, Franklin’s biographer, desig- 
nated the portrait as “one of the best ever taken of Dr. Franklin.” Franklin in a 
letter to Mrs. Deborah Franklin dated September 1, 1773, said: 

To the French edition they have prefixed a print of your old husband, which, though a copy of that 
by Chamberlin, has got so French a countenance that you would take him for one of that lively nation. 

Chamberlin painted an original and a replica of Franklin. Harvard University 
possesses a copy by G. D. Leslie. 

Benjamin Wilson painted several portraits of Franklin. One of them, done in 
1759, hangs in the White House at Washington. It was in the possession of Mrs. 
Deborah Franklin in Philadelphia at the time of the taking of Philadelphia by 
the British under Lord Howe, in 1777. A number of British officers, among them 
the ill-fated Major John André, occupied the Franklin residence and when they 
left Major André took with him the Wilson portrait of Franklin,. which he later 
presented to General Sir Charles Grey. Franklin in a letter written in Phila- 
delphia in 1788, after his return from France, spoke of this theft as follows: “Our 
English enemies, when they were in possession of this city and this house, made a 
prisoner of my portrait, and carried it off with them, leaving that of its com- 
panion, my wife, a kind of widow.” This letter was written to Mme. Lavoisier, 
who was herself an artist, in acknowledgment of a painting of Franklin by her. 
He concluded by saying: “‘You have replaced the husband, and the lady seems to 
smile, as well pleased.” 

The Wilson portrait in Washington hung for more than a hundred years in 
Howick House, the ancestral home of the Greys, and it was seen there by Joseph 
H. Choate, ambassador from the United States to the Court of St. James, who 
suggested that it ought to be returned to the United States and that 1906, the two 
hundredth anniversary of Franklin’s birth, would be an appropriate date for the 
restoration. The suggestion appealed favorably to Earl Grey, the head of the 
family and at that time governor-general of Canada, and the portrait was later 
sent to Theodore Roosevelt, then president of the United States. It was placed in 
the White House, where it will doubtless remain permanently. It was Ee tag 
in Earl Grey’s homie by a copy made by William M. Chase. 

It will be noted that like the Pratt, Martin and Chamberlin portraits, it shows - 
Franklin wearing a wig, which ence he discarded in later years. He said of the 
portrait that it was ‘“‘allowed by those who have seen it to have great merit as a 
picture in every respect.” 

Benjamin Wilson (1731-1788) was a student of electricity and it was but 





WILSON PORTRAIT 
WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON 





WRIGHT PORTRAIT 


LH eraOUN LIN PORTRAITS Zi 


natural that he and Franklin should become friends. He wrote a number of books 
on the subject and was a member of the Royal Society, which awarded him a gold 
medal. In addition to being a painter he was also an etcher of ability. 

Joseph Wright, a painter of Franklin portraits, has not usually been given 
more than passing mention in discussions of the subject, but he is evidently entitled 
to much more notice than that. According to Mr. Charles Henry Hart, who wrote 
an extensive communication to the Pennsylvania Magazine of History, published 
in July, 1908, Wright painted three and possibly four portraits of Franklin. He 
was the son of Patience Wright, an American artist, who modeled a portrait in 
wax of Franklin that he presented to Mary Hewson, the married daughter of 
Mrs. Stevenson, at whose house in Craven Street, London, he lived while agent for 
the Colonies in England. It descended from her to her grandson, C. S. Bradford 
of West Chester, Pa. 

Joseph Wright (1756-1793) was born in Bordentown, N. J. He studied in 
London under Benjamin West and Joseph Hoppner. He painted portraits of the 
Prince of Wales, afterward George IV of England, and George Washington. 
The latter said of him that he ‘‘is thought on a former occasion to have taken a 
better likeness of me than any other painter has done.” Washington appointed 
him the first engraver and die sinker to the United States Mint, located in Phila- 
delphia. He designed the first United States coins and medals. In his will he de- 
scribed himself as “miniature painter and engraver.” 

It was Mr. Hart’s belief, based upon exhaustive research, that the portrait in 
the possession of the Royal Society of London ascribed by the Society as ‘‘anony- 
mous,” the portrait in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington ascribed to 
Duplessis, that in the Boston Public Library ascribed to Greuze, and that owned 
by the descendants of Richard Oswald in their ancestral home in Auchincruive, 
Ayrshire, Scotland, were all executed by Joseph Wright. 

It will be remembered that Richard Oswald was the “go-between” in the 
‘negotiations which finally brought an end to the war between England and the 
American Colonies. He was a member of the Peace Commission, to the British 
members of which Caleb Whitefoord was secretary. Whitefoord’s correspond- 
ence shows that he employed Wright to paint at least three portraits of Franklin. 
In a letter to the American Philosophical Society dated February 25, 1791, 
accepting membership in that body, he mentions the Franklin portrait by Wright 
which he says he had presented to the Royal Society. 

William Hodgson acted for exchanges of American and British prisoners dur- 
ing the war. Ina letter written by him October 14, 1782, he says: “If the above 
bill on L’Orient is honored you will please to apply the whole or what part you 
please to Mr. Wright for the picture, which when proper opportunity offers, I am 
expecting.” The Corcoran Gallery picture was purchased in 1885 from Henry 
Stevens and is inscribed: ‘‘This portrait of Dr. Franklin was painted in Paris in 
1782 and was presented by him to Mr. William Hodgson of Coleman Street as a 





PORTRAIT ATTRIBUTED TO GREUZE 


THE FRANKLIN PORTRAITS 23 


token of his regard and friendship.” Mr. Hart believed this statement to have 
been made in error so far as the presentation by Franklin to Hodgson is concerned 
and that the painting is the one by Wright paid for by Hodgson as stated in his 
letter. 

The portrait referred to as being in the Boston Public Library was presented to 
it by Gardner Brewer in 1872. In 185g it was in the possession of Joseph Parkes, 
son-in-law of Joseph Priestley, the English scientist, who will be recalled as the 
long-time friend and correspondent of Franklin. 

Richard Oswald and Benjamin Franklin exchanged portraits. It was because 
of the three-cornered association between Oswald, Caleb Whitefoord and Joseph 
Wright, and the further fact that the location of none of the Wright portraits 
was at that time definitely known, that Hart attributed the portrait in the pos- 
session of Oswald’s heirs to Wright. 

R. A. Oswald, a direct descendant, wrote in 1892 that the portrait resembles 
the Duplessis originals and that he thought it was by that artist, although there 
is no direct evidence to that effect. The Wright and Duplessis portraits were 
painted at points not very far distant in time and there is therefore a marked 
resemblance in them. 

Jean Baptiste Greuze, a Burgundian, born in 1725 and who lived to be eighty 
years of age, is probably the best known of the painters who did portraits of 
Franklin. His was a pastel, executed in 1777. It was thus described by a contem- 
poraneous French writer: “The portrait of Franklin is especially notable. It 
would be difficult to find a more characteristic expression. We there see kindliness 
happily allied to high spirit; an equal love of humanity and hatred of tyranny.” — 

A copy by Guillaume said to be of the Greuze painting is owned by the Virginia 
Historical Society, Richmond, Va. The original painting was given by Franklin 
to M. Beyer, a French inventor, employed by the French Government to superin- 
tend the construction and arrangement of lightning rods on the public edifices and 
monuments of Paris. He gives the following account of an invention suggested by » 
Doctor Franklin: ““M. Franklin, during his residence at Paris, desired to have 
a means of writing without being seen. I invented for him des tablettes mecha- 
niques, by means of which one may write in his pocket without looking at what 
he writes, and without danger of making mistakes.” The portrait is supposed to 
have been presented in return for this kindness. It bears no resemblance to the 
painting by Greuze, but seems rather a combination of ideas suggested by the por- 
traits by Peale and Vanloo. 

David Martin (1736-1798), a Scottish painter and mezzotint engraver, 
painted what is known as the “thumb portrait” in 1767, while Franklin was in 
England. It descended to one of Franklin’s sister’s grand-daughters from Robert 
Alexander, an Edinburgh business man, who was its original purchaser and one 
of whose descendants she had married. peeanelin evidently was pleased with the 
portrait, for he ordered a replica, which he left by his will to the Supreme Execu- 





VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY PORTRAIT 
BY GUILLIAME, EVIDENTLY COPIED FROM THE PORTRAIT BY PEALE 








MARTIN OR “‘THUMB”” PORTRAIT 





FRANKLIN DRAWING ELECTRICITY FROM THE SKY 
GENERALLY ACCEPTED AS HAVING BEEN PAINTED BY BENJAMIN WEST 


THE PRANK LIN. PORTRAITS 27 


tive Council of Philadelphia. It is now in the possession of the American Philo- 
sophical Society in Philadelphia, and there are replicas in the Pennsylvania Acad- 
emy of Fine Arts and Independence Hall. Another Martin portrait is in the pos- 
session of a private collector in Philadelphia, that is said by some experts to be a 
copy by Peale. And there is a copy by Alexander in the main building of the 
Philadelphia Public Library. 

Charles. Nicholas Cochin the Younger (1715-1790) drew what is known as 
the “fur cap” portrait in 1777, a year after Franklin arrived in Paris to take up 
his duties as one of the representatives of the newly-formed American nation. 
The original is now lost. Franklin had written, a few days after his arrival in 
Paris, to Mary Hewson in London: ‘Figure to yourself an old man with gray 
hair, appearing under a martin fur cap among the powdered heads of Paris. It 
is this odd figure that salutes you with handfuls of blessings on you and your little 
ones.” Three days later the French police entered this description on their record: 
“Dr. Franklin lately arrived in this country. This Quaker wears the full costume 
of his sect. He has an agreeable physiognomy, spectacles always on his eyes, but 
little hair; a fur cap is always on his head. He wears no powder; tidy in his dress; 
very white linen. His only defence is a walking stick.” 

A letter written by Thomas Pownall to Franklin, February 28, 1783, is evi- 
dence that Benjamin West painted a portrait of Franklin, but its whereabouts is 
unknown. The letter says: “I am this day made happy by having received and 
hung up an excellent portrait of you, my old friend, copied from that which West 
did for you.” West is said to have made a pencil sketch of an unidentified bust of 
Franklin that was bought by John Wanamaker at the sale of the collection of 
ex-Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker of Pennsylvania in 1905. In West’s un- 
completed study in oil of “the United States Commissioners in 1782 to Sign the 
Treaty of Independence” Franklin appears as one of the five. West (1738-1820) 
was born in Chester (now Delaware) County, Pennsylvania. He spent three years 
in Rome, going to London in 1763. George III appointed him historical painter 
to the Court, and offered him knighthood, which he refused. He was the first 
painter to abandon Greek and Roman and introduce modern costumes in histor- 
ical paintings. He was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. 

But little is known of what is called the Vanloo portrait. There were two French 
painters, brothers, named Vanloo, but the survivor of the two died in 1765, 
eleven years before Franklin went to live in France, although he had previously 
made visits there. It is within the possibilities that one or both of the Vanloos were 
in London during Franklin’s long residence in England. Mrs. Oliver Champlain 
made a copy of the Vanloo portrait that is now in the hands of a private owner. 

The portrait by Charles W. Peale (1741-1827), a pupil of Benjamin West, 
the last to be made during Franklin’s lifetime, was painted in 1787. Franklin 
was eighty-one years of age and was serving as governor (or president, as it was 
called then) of Pennsylvania and was also attending the sessions of the Consti- 





FRENCH INTERPRETATION OF PEALE PORTRAIT 
ATTRIBUTED TO VANLOO 








COCHIN “‘FUR CAP” PORTRAIT 





PEALE PORTRAIT 
PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS 





’ 


L HOSPITAL PORTRAIT 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 





LONGACRE PORTRAIT 
CAPITOL, HARRISBURG, PA. 





RECENTLY DISCOVERED FOLGER PORTRAIT 





RECENTLY DISCOVERED PORTRAIT 
ATTRIBUTED TO HENRY BENBRIDGE 





PORTRAIT ATTRIBUTED TO GAINSBOROUGH 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 


36 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN OIL AND BRONZE 


tutional Convention. Peale was born at Chesterton, Md., and was apprenticed to 
a saddler at Annapolis. He first studied art in Boston under Copley and later 
under West in London. Returning to America, he served as a volunteer in the 
American Army. He painted several portraits of Washington and also of most 
of the prominent men of his time. 

In the provost’s house at the University of Pennsylvania is a portrait of Frank- 
lin by J. F. De L’ Hospital, painted in Paris in 1779 for Franklin’s friend, Count 
St. Marys. It was presented to the university in 1887 by Lieutenant Joseph Beale, 
U.S.N. 

A Franklin portrait by J. B. Longacre hangs in the governor’s office in the 
State Capitol at Harrisburg, Pa. It was copied from the Duplessis miniature 
owned by Mrs. Davis of Philadelphia. 

The Folger portrait is so called because it was in the possession of the Folger 
family for more thana century. Abiah Folger, Josiah Franklin’s second wife, was 
Benjamin Franklin’s mother. The portrait was made in Philadelphia probably 
between 1750 and 1757. It was presented by Franklin to the Folger family, then 
living on Nantucket Island. It passed to a Mrs. Temple and was owned by her 
and her descendants for a long time. The name of the artist is unknown. 

Henry Benbridge, an American painter born in Philadelphia in"1744, painted 
a portrait of Franklin in London in 1770 that subsequently disappeared. A Frank- 
lin portrait that is believed to be the long lost work by Benbridge came into the 
market in 1925. It is on canvas 25x 30 inches in size and is in a good state of 
preservation. It is unsigned but the experts agree that it is in Benbridge’s manner. 

A Franklin portrait hangs in the Old South Meeting House in Boston, Mass., 
but no facts about its history are known. 

Among the portraits of doubtful authenticity the earliest is called the Sumner. 
It is in Memorial Hall at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. The artist is 
unknown. It is said to have been presented by Franklin to John Franklin of New- 
port, who married the grandmother of Thomas W. Sumner of Brookline, Mass. 
It is supposed to represent Franklin at twenty. At that time of his life he was 
living in straightened circumstances in London and it is reasonable to suppose that 
he had neither the money with which to buy the fine clothes shown in the picture 
nor to meet the expense of having his portrait painted. He could have borrowed 
or hired the clothes, of course, and the expense of the painting was not insur- 
mountable, but there is another and better reason for doubt about the painting. 
This period of Franklin’s life is fully covered by the Autobiography, but no men- 
tion is made in it of the painting. Other events of lesser import are set forth in 
detail, which leads to the belief that the painting was not made with Franklin as 
the original. Hart absolutely rejected it. . 

There is a painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York done by 
Stephen Elmer and known as the Elmer portrait of Benjamin Franklin. It was 
engraved and published by T. Ryder in 1782 with the title of “The Politician.” 


PH EROPRANK EIN PORTRAITS 37 


In 1824 the plate was re-issued and given the name of Franklin. It bears no re- 
semblance to any other Franklin portrait and should not be included among them. 

There are two so-called Gainsborough portraits of Franklin. One was bought 
at Chrystie’s in London in 1go1 by Mr. Joseph G. Rosengarten, who was chair- 
man of the Library Committee of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, 
and by him presented to the University. Hart questioned its authenticity. The 
other is in the collection of the Marquis of Landsdowne in England and is not 
now regarded as a Franklin portrait. Hart conjectured it to be a portrait of Wil- 
liam Franklin, Benjamin’s son, who became royal governor of the Province of 


New Jersey. 


THE FRANKLIN®STATUES 


HE first statue of Benjamin Franklin was erected in Boston. It was the 

result of a suggestion by Honorable Robert C. Winthrop in an address 

made by him the evening of November 29, 1853, before the Massachu- 

setts Charitable Mechanic Association under the title of “Archimedes 
and Franklin.” Mr. Winthrop called attention to the fact that no statue of Frank- 
lin was to be found anywhere and suggested that the association take in hand the 
matter of erecting one in Boston. At a meeting of the government of the associa- 
tion at the house of the president ten days later a resolution was introduced and 
passed to appoint a committee to take the matter in charge. This committee was 
_ appointed at a meeting on January 17th. 

Other associations were invited to take part in the project, as follows: Franklin 
Typographical Society, the Mercantile Library Association, the Mechanic Ap- 
prentices’ Library Association and the Franklin Medal Scholars. 

Richard S. Greenough was commissioned to design and model the statue. A 
striking feature of the design he later submitted and which was accepted con- 
sisted of four panels representing in bas-relief incidents in Franklin’s life. They 
were: Franklin working his press, Experimenting with electricity, Signing the 
Declaration of Independence and Concluding the Treaty of Peace. 

The date selected for the unveiling was September 17, 1856, the anniversary 
of the founding of the city. The buildings and streets were gaily decorated and 
the procession of notables and societies was five miles long. Forty-seven trades 
were represented in floats drawn by men, horses and oxen. The printers, of course, 
played a considerable part. On one car was a wooden screw press bearing the date 
1742 and said to have been used at one time by James Franklin. Reprints of the 
issue of the New England Courant for February 11, 1723, which was the first one 
to bear the name of the youthful Benjamin Franklin as publisher, were issued 
from it as it passed along and were thrown to the bystanders. 

The next car bore a modern equipment. One item was a cylinder press, of 
which a chronicler of the time said, “the use of steam not being available, the 
press is operated by means of a hand crank and wheel.” 

The exercises in connection with the unveiling took place at two o’clock on the 
grounds of the City Hall, where the statue had been placed. The Reverend 
George W. Blagden, pastor of the Old South Church and a lineal descendant of 
the clergyman who one hundred and fifty years before had performed the rite of 
baptism upon the day-old Benjamin Franklin, delivered the invocation. Hon- 
orable Robert C. Winthrop delivered the inaugural oration. Frederic W. Lincoln, 
Junior, the chairman of the general committee and president of the Massachusetts 
Charitable Mechanic Association, formally accepted the statue and in his turn 
presented it to the city authorities. Honorable Alexander H. Rice, mayor of 





BOSTON 


GREENOUGH STATUE, 


40 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN OIL AND BRONZE 


Boston, accepted the statue in the name of the city. An exhibition by the fire 
department on Boston Common concluded the exercises. 

The expense of the statue and the attendant exercises was met by public sub- 
scription in amounts varying from one to three hundred dollars, the total being 
nearly twenty thousand dollars. 

The Franklin statue in Printing House Square in New York was unveiled 
January 17, 1872. It was designed by Ernst Plassman and was a gift to the print- 
ing and publishing fraternity of New York by Captain Albert DeGroot at a cost - 
of $15,000, with $5,000 extra for the pedestal. Ground for the cornerstone was 
broken on October 2, 1871, and the cornerstone and pedestal were laid with 
masonic ceremonies twenty-four days later. John H. Anthon, grand master, pre- 
sided. Into the cornerstone was fitted a box containing the following: 

Constitution of the United States. 

Constitution of the State of New York. 

Manual of the State of New York. 

Corporation Manual of the City of New York. 

Parton’s Life of Franklin. 

Copy of the Holy Scriptures. 

Map of New York City. 

Appleton’s Railway Guide. 

Hoe’s Catalog of Printing Machines. 

Type Founders’ Specimen Books. 

Almanacs, Calendars and Business Cards of New. York Printers. 

New York City Newspapers. 

Illustrated Papers and Map of Chicago, describing its recent conflagration. 

The unveiling ceremonies were presided over by Professor Samuel B. Morse, 
others present being Horace Greeley, Peter Cooper,and Benjamin Franklin Bache, 
a descendant. The Reverend Doctor Deems, pastor of the Church of the Strangers, 
offered a prayer, after which Professor Morse made a short opening address. 
Horace Greeley on behalf of Captain DeGroot made the presentation address, 
which was responded to by Charles C. Savage, president of the board of trustees 
of the New York Typographical Society. 

A banquet in celebration of the event was held in the evening at Delmonico’s 
on Fourteenth Street. Plates were laid for 136. At the guest table were the 
Reverend Doctor $. Irenaeus Prime, who presided, supported on his right by 
Captain DeGroot and on his left by. Horace Greeley. Among the many other 
distinguished guests were Peter Cooper, Peter S. and Robert Hoe, Theodore L. 
DeVinne, Augustin Daly, Benjamin Franklin Bache and Reverend Richard 
Duane, descendants of Franklin, and others. 

At each plate was a copy of a facsimile of the Pennsylvania Gazette of Sep- 
tember 10, 1741. 

Responses to toasts were made as follows: ““The State of New York and the 
City of New York,” Honorable A. Oakey Hall, mayor; “Benjamin Franklin,” 
Horace Greeley; “Honesty the Best Policy,” Reverend Henry Ward Beecher; 


PLASSMAN STATUE 
PRINTING HOUSE SQUARE, NEW YORK 








42 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN OIL AND BRONZE 


“Our Country,” Reverend Doctor E. H. Chapin; “The Press,” Honorable Erastus 
Brooks; “The Working Press,” Peter C. Baker and C. A. Alvord; “American 
Literature,” Doctor E. S. Porter; “Our Mothers and Our Wives, Our Daughters 
and Our Sisters,”? H. O. Houghton, mayor of Cambridge, Mass.; “The Kite, the 
Key and the Telegraph,” Thomas N. Rooker, of the New York Tribune. 

Captain DeGroot also made a short address. The Reverend Doctor Duane, a 
lineal descendant of Franklin, was introduced. He exhibited two miniature por- 
traits preserved in the family, one of Benjamin Franklin taken by order of 
Louis XVI, and the other of the “Grand Monarch” himself presented by him to 
Benjamin Franklin. The last was the one referred to in Franklin’s will, set with 
408 diamonds. 

Captain Albert DeGroot, donor of the statue, was a retired steamboat captain. 
He introduced the modern style of ornate steamboat decoration in the “Jenny 
Lind” which he constructed about the time the Swedish Nightingale came to 
America. During the Civil War he built the steamers “Resolute” and “Reliance,” 
both of which became famous in the naval service. 

There are several statues of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, the principal 
one being the bronze seated figure by John J. Boyle on Chestnut Street in front of 
the main post office building. The others are: The marble figure by Lazzarini, 
occupying a niche over the doorway of the Philadelphia Library, which is the 
oldest, having been presented by William Bingham after Franklin’s death; the 
bronze statue by Professor R. Tait McKenzie, picturing Franklin as a youth as 
he landed in Philadelphia, in front of the gymnasium building of the University 
of Pennsylvania, and the heroic-size (10/2 feet high) brownstone figure of 
Franklin, by Joseph A. Bailly, which adorned the old Puélic Ledger building at 
Sixth and Chestnut Streets, but which on the demolition of the building was placed 
in storage. 

The Boyle statue stands on the site of the old University of Pennsylvania, of 
which Franklin was the founder, and it is said that this is the approximate loca- 
tion of his famous experiment with a kite “to bring down electricity from the 
sky.” This statue was presented to the city of Philadelphia by Justus C. Straw- 
bridge June 14, 1899. 

Preceding the ceremonies on that date, at the old Chestnut Street Opera House, 
a luncheon was served at the University Club, attended by many prominent guests. 
Postmaster-General Charles Emory Smith bade them welcome in a short address. 
Others present were: Justus C. Strawbridge, Wilson S. Bissell and Thomas L. 
James, former postmasters-general; Josiah Quincy, mayor of Boston; Samuel H. 
Ashbridge, mayor of Philadelphia; Edwin S. Stuart and Charles F. Warwick, 
former mayors of Philadelphia; Charles C. Harrison, provost of the University 
of Pennsylvania; A. H. Fetterolf, president of Girard College; Richard Rath- 
bun, of the Smithsonian Institution; E. D. Warfield, president of Lafayette Col- 
lege; Henry A. Rowland, of Johns Hopkins University; David P. Todd, of 





BOYLE STATUE, PHILADELPHIA 
REPLICA IN PARIS 





MC KENZIE STATUE 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 








THE FRANKLIN STATUES 45 


Amherst College; John Birkinbine, of the Franklin Institute; Coleman Sellers, 
chairman of the committee; Honorable James M. Beck, orator of the day; John 
J. Boyle, sculptor; E. A. Pesoli, French consul; Judge Pennypacker, Honorable 
Henry H. Bingham, Franklin Bache, Doctor Thomas Dunn English, Paul Lei- 
cester Ford, Sydney George Fisher, and L. Clarke Davis. 

The committee in charge represented institutions which were directly or indi- 
rectly brought into being by Benjamin Franklin. This committee was as follows: 
Doctor Charles Custis Harrison, provost of the University of Pennsylvania; 
Doctor Coleman Sellers, vice-president of the American Philosophical Society; 
James G. Barnwell, Esq., librarian of the Library Company of Philadelphia, 
Benjamin H. Shoemaker, Esq., president of the Pennsylvania Hospital; Judge 
Samuel W. Pennypacker, of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and John 
Birkinbine, E'sq., president of the Franklin Institute. 

Charles W. Duane, of Cambridge, Mass., was chief marshal, and the assistant 
marshals were Franklin Bache, R. Norris Williams, Benjamin Franklin Pepper 
and Thomas Leiper Hodge, all descendants of Benjamin Franklin. 

The meeting at the Opera House was called to order by Eugene Ellicott, assist- 
ant to Charles C. Harrison, provost of the University of Pennsylvania, who intro- 
duced the provost. The next speaker was Honorable James M. Beck, then United 
States attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, who delivered an elo- 
quent address on the life and work of Benjamin Franklin. He was followed by 
Honorable Josiah Quincy, mayor of Boston, who also spoke very eloquently of 
“Poor Richard.” . 

After the conclusion of Mayor Quincy’s address the audience proceeded to the 
Post Office building, where the statue was ready to be unveiled. The presentation 
speech in behalf of the donor, Mr. Strawbridge, was made by Postmaster-General 
Smith, who among other words, said: “‘If you would see the monument of Frank- 
lin, look wherever American greatness spreads its influence, and wherever con- 
spicuous service to mankind is remembered.” He recalled the fact that Benjamin 
Franklin was the first Postmaster-General of the United American Colonies. 

At the close of Mr. Smith’s address, the monument was unveiled by Miss Mar- 
garet Hartman Bache, a descendant of Franklin, amid the waving of American 
flags and the cheers of the multitude. Honorable Samuel H. Ashbridge, mayor 
of Philadelphia, then formally accepted the statue in the name of the city. 

The statue by Professor R. Tait McKenzie was presented to the University of 
Pennsylvania by the class of 1904 on June 16, 1914. It stands on the university 
grounds in front of the gymnasium facing Thirty-third Street. Honorable James 
M. Beck delivered the oration at the unveiling. 

The Franklin statue in Paris was placed there through the generosity of John 
Henry Harjes, who was responsible for the installation of other statues in various 
cities both in this country and Europe, notable among them being that of George 
Washington, which adorns the Place d’Iena in Paris. Mr. Harjes was a banker 


————— ee 


—_ 








STATUE BY R. H. PARK IN LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO 
REPLICA IN NEW ORLEANS 








MARBLE STATUE BY HIRAM POWERS IN CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON 
REPLICA IN NEW ORLEANS 


who was for many years head of the Paris branch of Drexel & Company, of 
Philadelphia. 

The city of Paris allotted a beautiful site for the statue at the entrance into the 
Place du Trocadero of the Rue Franklin, the street in what was called Passy, now 
a part of Paris, on which Franklin dwelt as minister to the Court of France for 
the nine years beginning 1776. 

The unveiling took place April 27, 1906, celebrating the two hundredth anni- 
versary of Franklin’s birth. Honorable Robert S. McCormick, ambassador from 
the United States to France, presided. Professor Albert Henry Smyth, of the 





BARTLETT STATUE IN WATERBURY, CONN. 








Ea 


Dehra Rd oS. ATOLLS 49 


University of Pennsylvania and editor of the best edition of Franklin’s works, 
delivered the oration. Addresses were made by M. Barthou, Minister of Public 
Works; Mr. Harjes; M. Chautard, president of the Municipal Council of Paris, 
and M. Autrand, secretary-general of the Prefecture of the Seine. An interesting 
incident of the ceremonies was the presentation to Professor Smyth of the insignia 
of the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. 

The statue is a replica of that by Boyle in front of the post office in Philadel- 
phia. The pediment was the work of a young American architect, Charly Knight. 
On its side are bas-reliefs showing the reception of Franklin by Louis XVI in 
1778 and the signing of the Peace of Paris in 1783, executed by Frederic Brou. 

The bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin, ‘‘Printer-Statesman,” in Lincoln 
Park, Chicago, was presented by Joseph Medill, founder and editor of the Chi- 
cago Tribune, through the Old Time Printers Association, acting as custodian, to 
the Lincoln Park Board of Commissioners. The sculptor was R. H. Park. The 
unveiling of the statue took place June 6, 1896. 

The speaker of the occasion was the Honorable H. D. Estabrook, of New 
York. He delivered an'‘address which has been proclaimed a “masterpiece of wit 





HOUDON BUST 





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DP Ren ca Cape eS ey PA RDA Tt ROSE ne ea te ss : z t pe 


BARTLETT STATUE IN WATERBURY, CONN. 


and eloquence.”” William Penn Nixon, editor of the Chicago Imter-Ocean at 
that time and later a member of the Lincoln Park Board, represented the Board at 
the event. John J. Flinn, editor of the Chicago Odserver, read an ode to Franklin. 
P. F. Pettibone spoke for the employing printers of Chicago. 

On the speakers’ platform during the presentation were: M. J. Carroll, Joseph 
Medill, Lambert Tree, Judge Tully, Thomas Brennan, Conrad Kahler, H. D. 
Estabrook, William Penn Nixon and thirteen girls representing the original 
colonies. . 

Mr. Medill delivered the presentation address. In explaining his reasons for 
selecting the Old Time Printers Association as custodian of the statue, he said he 
had done so because it was ‘‘a social organization to promote good fellowship, 
smooth down rufHled rivalries, celebrate the recurring anniversaries of ‘our patron 
saint,’ and relate the reminiscences of the rise and progress of the printer’s business 
in Chicago.” The guest of honor was Rene Bache, a great-great-grandson of 








STATUE IN WEISSPORT, PA. 


52 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN OIL AND BRONZE 


Franklin. As the statue’s covering fell, the “Star Spangled Banner” was rendered 
by the Second Regiment Band and a double quartet. 

A replica of the Park statue in Chicago has been erected in New Orleans. 

The first statue to be erected in Washington is located in the Senate wing of the 
Capitol. It is in marble and was done by Hiram Powers. Powers was born in 
Vermont in 1805. He settled permanently in Florence, Italy, in 1837, and died 
there in 1873. He is best known by his “‘Greek Slave.” He received $10,000 for 
the Franklin statue, which was erected in 1863. 

The Franklin statue on Pennsylvania avenue in Washington was erected in 
1889 at the expense of Stilson Hutchins, publisher of one of the Washington 
newspapers. It is one of the few statues to emphasize the word “printer,” the 
word appearing on the main front of the pedestal. The other three sides bear the 
word “philosopher,” “patriot,” and “philanthropist.” It was designed by Ernst 
Plassman. 

The marble statue of Benjamin Franklin in New Orleans is a replica of that in 
the Capitol in Washington, done by Powers. When Powers first went to Italy to 
study art a number of New Orleans people, in order to assist him financially, 
ordered from him a statue of Benjamin Franklin, for which they paid him five 
thousand dollars in advance. This was in 1844. The statue was not completed until 
more than twenty-five years later. It arrived in New Orleans in 1871, but through 
some mistake was offered for sale and was bought by Charles A. Weed, owner of 
the New Orleans Tzmes, who gave it to the city. 

It was originally placed in the center of Lafayette Square, afterwards being 
removed to the Camp Street side, in order to make room for a large bronze monu- 
ment of Henry Clay. As exposure to the weather began to injure it, it was removed 
into the Public Library, where it is now located. 

The Franklin statue in Jersey City is located in the main office and factory of 
the American Type Founders Company on Communipaw Avenue. It also was 
designed by Ernst Plassman, and originally stood in front of the Staats-Zeitung 
building on the north side of Printing House Square in New York. It followed that 
newspaper to its later location in the building Robert Bonner, publisher of the 
New York Ledger, erected at Spruce and William Streets, to house that publica- 
tion, and when the Staats-Zeitung got into business difficulties during the World 
War, the Franklin statue and its companion, the Gutenberg statue, were sold to 
the American Type Founders Company and removed to Jersey City. 

The Franklin statue that for many years stood over the doorway of the old 
Harper building in Franklin Square was erected in the early forties. The square 
was named after Walter Franklin, a merchant. The statue, which is of gray stone, 
is about seven feet in height. When the building was demolished it was presented 
to Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York. 

The bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin in Waterbury, Conn., was placed 
there in 1921 through a bequest in the will of Elisha Leavenworth, a merchant of 





ORNAMENTAL MINIATURE BOXES 
HUNTINGTON COLLECTION, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK 





MINIATURE FRANKLIN BUSTS 
HUNTINGTON COLLECTION, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK 


- eee 8 





f FRANKLIN STATUETTES 
HUNTINGTON COLLECTION, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK 





FRANKLIN SERVICE PLATES 
HUNTINGTON COLLECTION, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK 


oy 


ve if 





MEDALLIONS AND MINIATURES 
HUNTINGTON COLLECTION, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK 


58 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN OIL AND BRONZE 


that city. It was designed by Paul W. Bartlett, of Washington, and cast in 
Baltimore. Its completion in Baltimore was marked by exercises at which were 
present Honorable Jules Jusserand, ambassador, and Honorable Rene Viviani, 
special envoy from the French Republic.. 

The statue had an interesting journey from Baltimore to Waterbury, follow- 
ing, though in reverse, somewhat the journey taken by Benjamin Franklin, when 
as a youth of seventeen, he went from Boston to New York and Philadelphia in 
search of employment. It was taken to Philadelphia, then to Burlington, N. J., 
then on to New York, and from New York to Boston, and from Boston to Water- 
bury. Organizations of printers, electricians, opticians and others took charge of 
it along the route and many interesting exercises were held in connection with the 
various visits. At the unveiling in Waterbury, two descendants, Mrs. Anne Duane 
and Franklin Bache Huntington, were present. 

A stone monument commemorating Franklin’s military service was erected at 
Weissport (originally known as Gnaddenhutten) in 1922. In 1756 Franklin 
was commissioned a colonel and directed to erect fortifications to protect Phila- 
delphia from armed attack. Proceeding to Gnaddenhutten, his command erected 
three forts, one of which he commissioned Fort Allen, and it was on the site of this 
fort, now marked only by a well that was dug within its confines, that the statue 
was erected. It bears this inscription: ‘Erected by the Improved Order of Red 
Men of Pennsylvania, the PublicSchools of Carbon County and Grateful Friends.” 

Of the life-size busts of Franklin the most worthy of note are those by Jean 
Antoine Houdon (1740-1828) and Jean Jacques Caffieri (1725-1792). Six 
Franklin busts are known to have been modeled by Houdon: one in marble, done 
in 1778, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; one in bronze, 
privately owned in Philadelphia; and four in plaster. To the marble bust, a great 
modern sculptor, Rodin, paid a high tribute when he said: “Behold, all alive, one 
of the ancestors of modern America.” Houdon did busts and statues of many 
prominent personages of his time. He is best known in America because of his 
statue of George Washington in the Capitol at Richmond, Virginia. 

The Caffierri bust, which was modeled in 1777, is considered by some to be a 
more life-like characterization of Franklin than the bust by Houdon. 

The Franklin bust used by the United States Government on the penny postage 
stamp is in the possession of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. 
It isa white plaster copy by Flaxman of the bust by Houdon. 


é 


One thousand copies printed by the Aquatone Process 4 
at the Printing House of William Edwin Rudge ; 
Mount Vernon, N.Y. 

















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